By Morgan Watkins, Quill

Jesselyn Radack has blown the whistle. She’s also been punished for it.

As an ethics adviser in the Justice Department in 2001, she advised the government not to interrogate John Walker Lindh without his counsel present. When she learned that the FBI had questioned the American found fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, she warned government officials not to use his confession for a criminal prosecution.

The government used it anyway.

Radack later received a harsh performance review and was told she may be happier at another job. These unfavorable responses surprised her, as she hadn’t received any prior negative feedback about her work.

In early 2002, she learned that the judge in the Lindh case had requested copies of all Justice Department correspondence relating to his interrogation. She discovered that the government had not turned over most of her correspondence warning against the actions taken in the case. Radack resigned from her job and blew the whistle. It didn’t take long for retaliation to come.

Radack was placed on the no-fly list. The government tried to get her disbarred in Washington, D.C., and Maryland. While the Maryland charges were dropped in 2005, the D.C. charges are still pending nearly a decade later. She also became a target of a federal criminal leak investigation.

“Why crucify me when one of their cases tanked because of their own misconduct?” said Radack, who serves as the national security and human rights director for the Government Accountability Project.

She had a rough experience as a whistle-blower during the George W. Bush administration. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, she thought things would change under his leadership.

As far as she can tell, it’s only gotten worse.

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